Volume 6, No. 10
November 2019
Nannie Helen Burroughs: A Suffragist Rebuffed but Undaunted  

May 2, 1879 - May 20, 1961
                                                     
by Jackie Kirley


Nannie Helen Burroughs was born in Orange, Virginia, of parents who had been slaves.  After her father died, her mother moved the family to Washington, D.C. for greater opportunities in education and employment. Burroughs attended M Street High School. There she met her role models, Anna J. Cooper and Mary Church Terrell, who were both active in the suffrage and civil rights 
movements .  She graduated with honors and applied for a position in the D.C. Public School system but was turned down.  
 
Not easily deterred, Burroughs approached the National Baptist Convention (NBC) to open a school to educate and train poor, working African American women.  She believed that education and job training for African American women should go beyond the skills involved in domestic work, plus it was extremely important that they study their own history. NBC purchased land for the school, but it proved more difficult to attain funds to build it.  Booker T. Washington doubted African Americans would fund the school and Burroughs did not want to rely on wealthy whites.  Instead, she raised money from small donations from African American women and children.  In 1909, the National Training School for Women and Girls opened, with Burroughs as president, where she remained until her death.
 
Hand-in-hand with her passion for education was her passion for civil rights for African Americans and women. She participated in numerous organizations including the National Association of Colored Women and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. She also provided a strong feminist voice within NBC, founding the Women's Auxiliary of NBC and acting as president of the Women's Convention (WC) for 13 years. 
 
Burroughs considered suffrage for African American women essential to protect their interests in the discriminatory society they were living in. In fact, so many African American women registered to vote after passage of the Nineteenth Amendment that a Georgia state representative predicted that the Nineteenth Amendment would destroy white supremacy in Georgia because of the number of black women who had joined the voter rolls. However, after the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, there were concerted, and successful, efforts in the South to disenfranchise African American women.  
 
African Americans turned for help to Congress, to the NAACP, and finally to national white suffrage leaders.  In 1924 Burroughs advised white female politicians to tap into the potential of the Black female electorate.  With the exception of Ruth Hanna McComick, who recruited Mary Church Terrell to head her 1929 Senatorial campaign, Burroughs' advice was ignored. Burroughs concluded that white women did not recognize the worth of African American women as a political force in the nation. 
 
Burroughs continued writing and speaking to mainly African American audiences. She encouraged her audiences to see themselves as capable, moral, active citizens. She argued for Black political empowerment, collective activism, and consistently urged African Americans to view themselves as part of a grand force in the quest for justice.  She had a strong, enduring influence on African Americans including many civil rights advocates such as Ella Baker, Thurgood Marshall, and Martin Luther King, Jr. 
 
We cannot know what our history would have been had white suffrage leaders heeded her advice.
 
                                                                                             
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Mother Jones on the Move
 
by  Margaret  Fulkerson

 

Mother Jones seems to be everywhere these days. You may have seen a giant inflatable of her image on the picket line with the Chicago Teachers Union inspiring teachers, students and families.
 
On November  1st, WWHP cosponsored a performance of  " Mother Jones in Heaven: A Musical by Si Kahn "  at the Irish American Heritage Center. Vivian Nesbit t's performance as Mother Jones with John Dillon on guitar drew an enthusiastic crowd. 
 
The play opened with "Mother" Jones arriving in heaven to discover that  heaven is identical to her favorite Irish pub back down on Earth. Over the course of the performance "Mother" Jones looked back over her life, sifting through her storied past, balancing the scales. On the one hand, her methods and practices, on the other, her reputation and results. Moments of profound insight are woven with hilarious tales of a hellion in her prime.
 
Following the play Rosemary  Feurer, director of the Mother Jones Heritage Project announced the campaign for a statue of Mother Jones in downtown Chicago. The Irish Government has generously provided a grant of $36,000 as a kickstart to the project. To learn more about this project and to make a donation go to motherjonesmuseum.org.

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CLUW Members Meet in Las Vegas for Biennial Convention
 
by Helen Ramirez-Odell
  
The 20th Biennial  Convention of the Coalition of Labor Union Women (CLUW) was held Oct. 15-18, 2019 in Las Vegas.   The theme was "Coming Together to Change the World." Two keynote speakers were  Elizabeth Shuler, Secretary-Treasurer of the AFL-CIO and Sara Nelson, International President of the Association of Flight Attendants AFA-CWA.  Both women want  to succeed Richard Trumka as AFL-CIO President when his term is up in 2021. If either one  prevails, she will be the first woman to be in the highest labor position in the country.  Dolores Huerta, Co-Founder of the United Farm Workers, other speakers,  a Celebration of Women's HERstory, and  a panel of young women were also featured at the convention.

One of many resolutions passed was "Working Women Need Child Care" submitted by Jackie Kirley of Working Women's History Project.  CLUW members pledged to work in their communities and unions to support better pay for child care workers, educate government representatives on the need for affordable, quality child care, and support legislation that supports this goal. 

As a special order of business, CLUW adopted a resolution entitled "We are all Chicago" which supported the Chicago Teachers Union strike that started October 16 and ended October 30.

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Please contact us through Amy Laiken
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